1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus for cutting long towel cloth formed of piled fabric sections and flat fabric sections woven alternately, and more particularly to an apparatus for cutting long towel cloth at intermediate positions of the individual flat fabric sections.
Such cutting of towel cloth creates a number of towel blanks, each comprising a piled fabric section which has at both ends a pair of flat fabric sections to be formed into folded hems. The flat fabric sections at both ends of each towel blank are then folded and sewn. As a result, the towel blanks come into final towel products.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The above-mentioned cutting of towel cloth was manually performed in the past and had low efficiency.
The present inventor has, therefore, devised and put into practice an apparatus as described hereinbelow. The apparatus comprises a pull-out device for pulling out towel cloth; a positioning device disposed along a conveyor path of the towel cloth pulled out by the pull-out device and adapted to, when the boundary of a flat fabric section and a subsequent piled fabric section of the towel cloth has arrived, stop the movement of the towel cloth while locking a leading end of the piled fabric section; and a cutting device disposed along the conveyor path downstream relative to the positioning device in the direction of movement of the towel cloth and adapted to cut the towel cloth being positioned by the positioning device. The spacing between the positioning device and the cutting device is set equal to a half of the prearranged length of the flat fabric section.
By using such apparatus, the long towel cloth can be cut at the individual flat fabric sections successively in a more efficient manner.
However, the long towel cloth sometimes has many flat fabric sections which are different from one another longitudinally. Specifically, the individual flat fabric sections are woven into substantially equal sizes in the process of fabricating long towel cloth. The fabricated towel cloth is then sequentially passed through a bleaching step, a dying step, a drying step, etc. The tension exerted on the long towel cloth is not always constant throughout those steps. As a result, some of the flat fabric sections are shrunk into smaller lengths, while others thereof are extended into larger lengths. Cutting such towel cloth by the cutting device gives rise to disadvantages.
More specifically, in case of cutting the flat fabric section shorter than a prearranged size, the succeeding towel blank with respect to the cut position is cut to have a flat fabric section of predetermined length on the leading end side thereof. However, the preceding towel blank with respect to the cut position is cut to have a flat fabric section on the trailing end side thereof which is extremely shorter than a predetermined size. Such extremely short flat fabric section cannot be formed with a folded hem in the later step. Thus, those towel blanks must be rejected as defective goods.
On the other hand, in case of cutting the flat fabric section longer than a prearranged size, the succeeding towel blank with respect to the cut position is cut to have a flat fabric section of predetermined length on the leading end side thereof. However, the preceding towel blank with respect to the cut position is cut to have a flat fabric section on the trailing end side thereof which is extremely longer than a predetermined size. If a folded hem is formed in such extremely long flat fabric section, there would still remain a lengthy flat fabric section between the folded hem thus, and the adjacent piled fabric section, making the appearance of the towel very poor. Thus, those towel blanks must also be treated as defective goods. Therefore, there is a higher occurrence of defective goods.